She Did 37 Deals in the Worst Market in 20 Years. Without a Team.

The first thing you need to know about Shannan Alvis is that she turned 50 and decided she was done waiting.

Not done waiting for the right market or the right brokerage or the right time. Done waiting to find out whether she was actually going to do the thing she’d been talking about for decades. She got her real estate license in January 2022. Her oldest kid later told her they couldn’t remember a time she didn’t want it.

Before that, she spent nearly 30 years as a professional horse trainer in Southern Oregon — a career she designed specifically around her five kids, so she could be at every game, every recital, every moment that mattered. Real estate was always somewhere in the back of her mind. At 50, she stopped letting it stay there.

Shannan is a current member of my coaching community, and I wanted to bring her on the podcast because her story is one of the clearest examples I’ve seen of what it actually looks like to build something real from scratch — in a hard market, in a small town, with no shortcuts.

The Decision That Changed Everything

Her first year in real estate, Shannan closed four deals. She was still training horses at the time, running two careers at once, learning the business as she went.

By 2023, something shifted. She was at eXp, learning how to market herself, figuring out who she wanted to be as an agent. And then, somewhere around May of that year, she made the call.

“I sent home all my client horses and said: I’m either going to build a real estate business or I’m not. I went all in.”

That year she closed nine deals. The next year — 2024, one of the slowest markets in two decades, a year when 74% of real estate agents didn’t close a single transaction — she closed 37. Thirty-one of those came from her sphere and her social media. Six came from her team.

Which brings us to the next decision.

Why She Left the Team (And What She Figured Out First)

Shannan joined a team because the opportunity made sense at the time. They needed someone in Klamath Falls; she needed infrastructure and leads while she was building. She became number two on the team. She respected the people she worked with.

And then she sat down and looked at the numbers.

“I sat down and figured out that my business grew because of my circle of people — the coaching groups, the people I’d found online that turned into friends. When I was having problems, those were the people I went to. Even when I was on the team. So I went: this is me. And I want my business to be me.”

She left in February 2025. She’s now a solo agent at eXp, on pace to match or exceed her 2024 numbers — while keeping every dollar.

For anyone in the same position, she has a straightforward framework before making the move: figure out exactly what the team provides that you actually use. What’s it going to cost to replace it? What are you gaining by leaving? And — most importantly — are you the kind of person who needs someone holding your hand, or are you the kind of person who will go find the support you need on your own terms?

There’s no wrong answer. Some people thrive on teams. Shannan is what she calls a bulldozer. She’ll run you over if you stand in front of her — she told her team lead that the first day she met him. He rolled his eyes and let her go. It worked, for a while.

Eventually, she needed to be fully in charge of where she was going.

Getting Selective Changed Her Business More Than Any Strategy

One of the biggest shifts Shannan made — something she credits directly to coaching — was learning to be selective about clients.

She put it in terms I loved: in horse training, when you’re just starting out, you ride everything anybody sends you. Same thing in real estate. Early on, she listed anything. She took every buyer who came through the door. She spent her time, her money, her energy on clients who weren’t ready.

Now, buyers have to be pre-approved before she goes shopping with them. Sellers get an honest conversation about pricing before she puts her photographer on the job. If someone isn’t realistic about what they want to do or what the market will bear, she refers them out.

“I’d rather spend more time with the people who fit me. The ones I fit with.”

This is what I mean when I talk about building a business that works for you instead of one that just keeps you busy. Shannan isn’t chasing volume. She’s building a practice. And she’s doing it in a rural town of modest price points, which means every deal has to count.

Her Why Is Bigger Than Her Numbers

I asked Shannan about her why. She’s 54 years old, almost 55. She has five kids, four daughter-in-laws, one daughter, and twelve grandchildren — including five granddaughters.

That’s the answer.

“I wanted to show my daughter-in-laws and my granddaughters: it doesn’t matter how old you are. It doesn’t matter how many people say you can’t. If you want something, go do it.”

She also talks about what she wants to model for her sons and grandsons — what it looks like to support a woman who’s chasing something. Her husband has her back completely, even when he doesn’t fully understand the plan. That kind of support, she says, is part of what she’s building toward for the next generation of her family.

Every year on her birthday, she writes a list. Dreams that are either going to become goals or get forgotten. This year, more of them are becoming goals.

What She’s Still Working On

I want to be honest about something, because Shannan was honest about it: hitting a big goal doesn’t automatically feel like a win.

She hit a major financial goal in 2024 — one she didn’t think she could reach. And when she got there, her first reaction wasn’t celebration. It was: now what? She’d been so focused on the goal that reaching it left her in a kind of mental limbo. She got stuck. She hit what she calls a “wonky spot.”

She pulled herself out of it the same way she handles a bad barrel race: put things in perspective. You’re not going to win every run. You’re going to place second, fifth, tenth. The job is to keep going, take care of your clients, and look back at how far you’ve actually come instead of only measuring against where you wanted to be.

That’s not a mindset you develop from a motivational quote. It comes from decades of competing, of training animals who can feel every shift in your energy, of building something real and watching it sometimes not go the way you planned.

The Niche That Isn’t a Niche

When I asked Shannan about her niche, she paused. Because it’s not what most people expect.

She doesn’t specialize in horse properties or ranches or any specific property type. Her niche is a feeling.

“My specialty is helping people open the next door. Whatever that door is.”

First-time buyers who are scared. Families who need more land. Empty nesters who are ready to downsize. People relocating from other states. The common thread isn’t the transaction. It’s that they’re at a pivot point — something is changing in their life, and they need someone who actually wants to help them figure out what comes next.

That’s the psychographic niche. The one that isn’t about what someone is buying or selling, but about who they are and where they are in their life. I’ve talked about this a lot in my coaching work, and Shannan is one of the clearest examples I know of someone who’s built her entire brand around it naturally.

Bottom Line

Shannan Alvis closed 37 deals last year in a market where most agents closed zero. She did it in a small rural town, as a solo agent, in her third year. She did it without riding on anyone’s coattails, without a big team infrastructure, and without waiting for the market to cooperate.

She also did it while barrel racing, raising grandkids, and building a business that actually looks and feels like her.

That’s what unbreakable determination looks like when it’s pointed in the right direction. You don’t wall around anything. You just adjust and move forward.

If you want to connect with Shannan, her information is in the show notes. She’s based in Klamath Falls, Oregon and is the kind of agent you want to know.

And if you’re ready to build the kind of business that’s actually built around you — the one that grows because of who you are, not in spite of it — let’s talk.